Bashkuga
Because the sun has not yet risen on the day when Bashkuga, born out of the jaws of Hellfire Citadel, will face death graciously. I will kick and claw and bite and scratch and spit my last breath in its face, and as long as you are with me, you will do the same, is that clear? Background Born in a time of war, in a place of war, Bashkuga drank the blood of of Mannoroth the Destructor with his mother's milk. From the day he could hold an axe, he was bred to be a Warrior, a soldier to take the world of man for his people. He had never known the beauty of Draenor before it's corruption by the demons, and before coming to Azeroth, had only seen the greens of the wild from his incredibly rare glimpses of Terrokar. Rock and ash were his trees and grass, battlecrys and the blood rage were his lullaby and dreams. His life was for the war waged on the otherside of the great stone pillars, groomed by his commander to take battle as his way of life. His parents were never known to him from the last time he was fed by his mother, and never to be known again. The Horde was his family, each soldier his brother, Blackhand his father and that was all he needed. The day they would step through the portal was the closest thing to a celebration he'd ever known, and when the day came, the excitment nearly overwhelmed him. Greater then any sparring, or brawl he entered in to with his brothers, even more so then the pleasure he recieved from tracking and killing those that would betray and flee the Horde to worm out an existance in Nagrand. Although he was not greeted with the glorious struggle he so yearned for once he arrived on the other side of the portal, there was plenty to do. Much of which involved tracking and killing, although in a way he was not used to. The green plants, and thick water were nothing but a hinderance, and a place for his prey to hide. Great black beasts, with fur and claws, almost like wolves, but with much squatter snouts, and thin, serpent like tails. Massive spiders with coarse, rigid fur all over each of their massive eight legs with dripping fangs of venom. Finally, his favorite, the great stout reptiles with jaws that could snap an orc's arm in two, with hide thick enough to withstand any arrow that wasn't flung with the proper strength. Clad in natural armor, and born with weapons that could fell an opponent much larger then itself, Bashkuga took the greatest pleasure in challenging these great beasts. Each brought food and bounty to his brothers the likes of which he'd never seen in his life, and had only heard about in years passed from the older warriors. After a few days of trenching out their newfound hunting grounds, more and more orcs ever slowly poured out of the great portal into the wet, stinking marsh, and eventually Bashkuga estimated that almost a full quarter of their forces were now knee deep in this new world. They were here far more as a hunting party, and he knew it. They were here for war. It was soon after that the young orc met the enemy for the first time. They were small, about the size of a female orc, pink skinned and often clad themselves in so much armor one could scarecly tell if they were flesh and blood. A few swings of the axe, though, and one knew for certain just how much blood they had. He was somewhat dissapointed, as most of the time he had gotten more of a thrill out of killing the great lizards then these women sized enemies. That was until one late night. A youngling of the pink skins race had somehow managed to wander into their territory. A survivor of one of the attacks on the pink skins caravans? A hunter looking for food in this dense wetland? Maybe a thief thinking that the Orcs were just savages, and trying to make off with some of their goods? He doubted the boy was any of these, as when confronted, he managed to blast one of Bashkuga's comrades with a bolt of power the likes of which he'd only seen come from Warlocks. It was moments after this that a second human, far from being a runt, or a boy, appeared, and with power that made Bashkuga's muscles twitch under every inch of green flesh, made short work of a warlock that moved to confront him. So these humans may well turn out to be a great struggle to defeat after all. Even with his lust for battle, and the blood of Mannoroth in his veins, the young orc had no desire to come face to face with the tall man whom he had just seen leave with his ward. It was not so much fear that caused his hand to stay an axe, but knowledge of the fact that it would no doubt be meaningless to such a being, and some manner of respect he held for such a great power. Bashkuga was not a brilliant scholar, or a great sage, but he knew raw power when he was near it, and when he was out matched. To die in battle was one of the greatest hopes his kind could have, to end their lives fighting for something, but to be snuffed out in a scuffle with a being that thought of him as no more then a gat, for no more reason other then his own ego was not something he wished for. As time went on, the Horde's presence became more well known, and the humans began to respond accordingly. As the years after the war slowly dragged on, more and more Orcs were forced into labour camps. Camps very often built by those that were meant to be imprisoned in them. At first, many put up resistance, expecting their brothers and sisters to rush in and free them from their human captors, but as time went on and their numbers began to swell, Bashkuga saw the light fade from the eyes of many of his kin. Once proud warriors who lived for freedom, and strength, were now pitiful prisoners, trapped in both body and mid, who were weak, and wallowed in the mud and filth of their self-built prisons. This fate was something that all, almost all, of the orcs fell prey to. Bashkuga would have sooner taken his own life then allow himself such a fate, and attempted to once or twice by trying to force the guards to kill him as he attempted to escape. Instead, all he recieved were beatings, and imprisonment, locked in a pit for days on end. The humans would rather break his spirit then end his suffering. These were not the proud and honorable pink skins he faced in battle, these were no more then cowards, dishonorable and treacherous. As the years came and went, Bashkuga's resolve changed. He was not to die in this pit of filth, and he was not to become some mindless live stock to be treated as such. He was a warrior, and would live to one day see beyond these walls, even if that day was only because these walls became so old that they crumbled to dust, he would live to see it. That was the steel of his resolve. There was work to be done, and some days the soldiers felt that the Orcs were meant to pull their own weight, using them to replace their own men, or at times, their own beasts. Stone were broken to make roads to and from the prison camps. Buckets of water and slop hauled to the orcs each day, stagnant water not fit to bathe a toad in, and food that was more bone and hair then anything digestable. Some days soil needed to be reaped, and the guards took great pleasure in locking a harness upon an orc as if they were a horse to be whipped. Each of these chores meant to be humilating and degrading Bashkuga took, and from it he recieved no thanks from the humans, and from some of the more resolved orcs, looks of disgust and scorn. But there was a method to this work he did. Each day, with each job, he pushed the boundries of what was expected. Each time he pushed his body to the extremes, to the edge. He would often rip stones out of the ground with his bare hands rather then use a shovel to pry them free, then shatter them into smaller ones. He would carry twice, sometimes thrice, the load of dirty water and slop to his fellow prisoners, burning his back and legs with the weight of the load. He would pull the plow with as much speed and force as he could muster, tearing through the soil faster then even the stoutest of work horses, faster then his guard's whip could reach him. When his antics upset his guards particularly well, and they threw him in the hold, he would grip the bars that worked as the lid of his stoney, subterrainian cave, and lift himself up, and down, over and over, from when the night's moon raise to when the sun began to finally peak it's white head over the tops of the trees. He would force his body to match his spirit's resolve until his day to see the outside walls came. It kept his body strong, and his mind sharp, whenever he could he studied the guards who would train with each other in use of their small, light swords. When the guards would beat him, or another Orc, for some often fictional transgression, it provided simply another chance to learn their body language and gauge the strength of their strikes and blows. Even though his plans to escape had not presented themselves, it was all an attempt to keep his mind sharp, to not allow himself to dull, to remember what he had been trained for, and what he lived for. War, to fight, and to win. But something happened to change his plans... Involvement Strategy Quotes Trivia See also * Link External links * External link Category:Horde Category:Orc Category:Warrior Category:Horde Warrior Category:Character Category:Horde Story Category:Stories